The Effects of Universal Design for Learning on Fifth-Grade Puberty Instruction to Enable Accessibility for Students with Disabilities

Puberty education is a widely accepted, critical component of sex education, yet little is known about its instruction. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a promising pedagogical approach for meeting the needs of diverse learners in the puberty classroom especially students with disabilities. This community-based participatory research project partnered with a community organization that provides 4-day puberty workshops to randomly assign schools (n = 30) to receive either a UDL or a traditional form of their 4-day workshop. Averaging across all students (n = 2,054), there were significant differences in knowledge scores between pre- and post-tests. Using hierarchical linear models, we identified that there were no differences between conditions for students’ knowledge, but there were differences in students’ sense of self-competence such that students who received the UDL version of the workshop reported higher self-competence. For both outcomes, there were no associations between condition assignment and Title 1 school status or the percentage of children with disabilities at the school. Although educators had high rates of fidelity when implementing the UDL version of the workshop, and they felt it facilitated participation, they struggled with multiple forms of representation, classroom management, and technology. This study suggests that a brief puberty workshop can have an immediate effect on students’ knowledge, and that UDL impacts students’ sense of self-competence.